Scent Salon with Odette Toilette and Aesop

Only a week to go before our fabulous Scent Salon with Aesop and Odette Toilette, have you bought your tickets yet? It should be a fantastic evening. For those that have and for anyone who isn’t quite sure what we mean by a Scent Salon, we’ve done a quick Q&A with Odette Toilette to discover exactly what’s we’re planning.

So Odette Toilette, what are we going to be doing at our Scent Salon then?

We’re going to be playing with perfume and having a ridiculously fun evening. Fragrance is this delicious pleasure in our day-to-day lives, but we don’t often have the opportunity to take time to think about what we like and how we like it.

The Salon is a chance for a group of women to get together and do some quite strange things with their sense of smell – over a glass of wine we’ll be indulging our senses, and responding to scents in a series of challenges – none of which are designed to test you, but aim to broaden your perceptions

It can be quite hard to know how to change your fragrance when you’ve been wearing the same one for years, how the heck do you start to choose a new one that’s perfect for you now? Will we be helping people understand how to buy better?

Choosing a new scent can be so involved it sometimes feels like a diplomatic mission. It’s even worse when your favourite perfume has been discontinued without warning, and you’re left bereft, scrambling about to find something else you love as much.

Often when we try to find something new, we’re stuck with the same old words: whether a scent is too sweet (a common complaint), or too young/old seeming for us. You then have the fragrance families like oriental or chypre. But just because we like one oriental, doesn’t mean we’ll enjoy them all.

This scent salon is going to take that language, put it in a bonfire and set it alight (note to self- check we are covered for fire insurance…)

Instead you can expect loads of quickfire exercises and games that help you find YOUR path for finding a scent. And crucially, after the salon you’ll be able to convey what you want to the people selling you fragrance, so they can make bulls-eye recommendations.

Apparently we are all supposed to have ‘perfume wardrobes’ now, a selection of fabulous scents that cover our every need, I’d really like to know how to do this well, are we covering this?

It’s funny, the argument for having one signature scent vs. fragrance wardrobes has been raging for almost a hundred years – there are some amazing articles in 1920s Vogue magazine about choosing fragrances for any occassion, from sports to shopping and you know, the odd debutante ball.

I wouldn’t want to prescribe one day or the other. Instead at the salon we’ll help you work out if you find the process of selecting a different each morning delicious or stressful.

And instead of thinking about where we wear fragrance (parties vs. work vs. weekend) we’ll be thinking about the personalities each of us need from our perfumes. So I might want one that’s dangerous, one that’s cosseting, and a third that’s meditative. Whereas, someone else might want one that feels intellectual and another that’s silly.

This is why we’re asking everyone to bring a bottle of something they used to love but have now gone off….because by unpicking the down-turn in the relationship, we can start to work out what you really want now.

Rumour has it Aesop are going to let our attendees have a sneaky sniff of the very first Aesop fine fragrance Marrakech Intense at our salon, is this true?

It is indeed! This is the first time ever that Aesop have developed a fine fragrance, as opposed to a blend of essential oils. Marrakech Intense isn’t out until September, so this really is an early preview.

Doesn’t that sound fun? One of the great aspects of perfume is that it is definitely non-ageist, if anything we get better at wearing fragrance the older we get, so come along! Come meet us! And learn how to sniff with confidence….(also the Aesop store is a gorgeous place to hang out, just look at the lovely green tiled floor)

BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE! They are a snip at £20, including a very lovely Aesop goody bag….look forward to seeing you there.